Social Media for SaaS: What Asana, HubSpot and Grammarly Do Well

Imagine you just landed the job of Marketing Manager at a new SaaS company. Your primary task is to create exciting and effective content that's going to attract new prospects, as well as educating and entertaining existing customers.

What marketing methods are you going to use? You'll probably opt for content marketing and perhaps some influencer marketing to build brand awareness. Hopefully, there's some budget for paid advertising campaigns, too.

But how are you going to use social media to achieve your goals?

In this article, you'll discover how three of the most successful SaaS companies use social media to generate leads and delight customers.

What is SaaS?

The SaaS (Software as a Service) business model is highly popular with startup software companies. Many use the freemium pricing model to attract new users to their platform and then aim to upgrade them to monthly premium paying subscribers.

It's a tried-and-tested model that's associated with buzzwords like 'growth' and 'hustle'. These companies need growth in subscribers and revenue to satisfy investors.

Why SaaS companies use social media

Despite the rapid rise in the number of SaaS startups, many fail to last longer than five years. Often this comes down to bad planning, including a lack of marketing, as each company tries to establish themselves and grow.

It's hard to ignore that many of the new SaaS offerings coming onto the market are 'slightly' boring. For instance, storing your data online, checking your spelling and grammar, or managing tasks more efficiently are neither exciting nor enticing to most people.

However, by focusing on the 'social' element of social media marketing, SaaS companies can overcome this hurdle.

1) Increase trust and credibility

They use social media to reveal more about their company culture; for example, team awards, social events, and community initiatives, etc.

2) Build a community of engaged followers

They use social media to engage with their audience; for example, by empathizing with followers, by sharing motivational messages, injecting humor into posts, and asking questions to start conversations.

3) Retain customers and attract prospects

They use social media to keep their app in front of existing users and impress potential new customers.

Sharing tips, tricks, and hacks can encourage existing customers to continue using the product in new ways.

Sharing case studies of existing customers using their product can save companies from having to explain product features.

Let's take a look at how three well-established SaaS companies have mastered social media to connect with their audience.

Asana, Grammarly, and HubSpot all post different types of content on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram that builds their brand image, attracts new clients, and serves existing customers.

Asana

Asana is a work management app designed to help teams organize and plan workflows, track projects, and keep everything on schedule.

Asana’s mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling all teams to work together effortlessly.

They are one of the successful SaaS startups, like Slack and Trello, offering collaboration tools, and have grown steadily to 30,000 paying subscribers since they were founded in 2008.

So, how does Asana use social media to grow its business?

Asana on Twitter

Asana uses Twitter to generate leads, share case studies, and take you behind the scenes at its HQ. Let's have a look at an example of each one:

Asana on LinkedIn

Asana uses the same material on LinkedIn as it does on Twitter. But there are some subtle differences, too. Aside from links to case studies and downloadable templates, Asana shares more educational and cultural content aligned with their mission statement. For example, there is:

The 'How To Asana' videos, like this one for Event Planning:

Links to their blog posts about team building:

And links to productivity stories on external sites:

Asana on Instagram

On Instagram, Asana opts for celebrating new hires and company culture, as well as big wins, like raising $75 million for their company in the summer.

Grammarly

Grammarly is an English-language writing-enhancement app for desktop and mobile that was first released in 2009. Millions of users worldwide trust the writing app to make their writing clear, effective, and mistake-free.

Make your communication clear and effective wherever you write.

But how does a writing app leverage social media to grow its business?

Grammarly on Facebook

Grammarly uses Facebook to build community and conversation. And with a following of over 7 million people, they must be doing something right.

They combine eye-catching images and videos with short copy to ask questions and entertain their followers. For example:

An image with a quote and a caption question to encourage engagement.

A link to a blog post about how to write a CTA, with a (tongue-in-cheek) caption and question:

Grammarly on Twitter

Grammarly posts daily to Twitter and uses the channel to increase brand awareness through humor and education. For example:

A video clip illustrating how you can switch between the four versions of English in their app:

HubSpot Academy - to educate and inspire people with marketing and sales training and certifications.

HubSpot on LinkedIn

HubSpot's LinkedIn page uses some of the same material as seen on Twitter. But overall there's a different slant to their marketing. Posting once a day, they share more posts from their blog that focus on customer success, plus marketing and sales tips to align with their brand.

Here are three examples of how they do that:

Sales tip: What makes a good email subject line?

Marketing tip: Form design best practices

Customer insights: An interview with a long-standing HubSpot client

HubSpot on Instagram

HubSpot posts content to Instagram once a day using a variety of images and videos to capture audience attention. They combine inspirational messages and motivational quotes using images and video with product updates.

Let's take a look:

Motivational video message

Caption: When a good idea hits you out of nowhere. Let's get this week started!

Caption: It’s important for us to help teams communicate. That’s why we are coming at you with a new tool that brings together live chat, team email, and an easy-to-use chatbot builder. Coming in hot is, Conversations! Check out our story for more details 💥

Sendible on Twitter

Twitter for Sendible is about educating their audience and connecting with other brands. It’s a good place to go if you’d like to get quick insights about social media marketing with the option to click on the tweets of the most interest to learn more.

Condensing blog posts in short bullet-point lists with the help of emojis:

Sendible on LinkedIn

For Sendible, LinkedIn is used almost exclusively to promote educational content from their blog and other reputable sources in the industry. They take advantage of tagging Company Pages on LinkedIn and profiles when possible to create more engagement.

Interview with AWeber to highlight the best email marketing practices for social media managers looking to get started:

Asking intriguing questions to support the blogs, in this case, whether it’s worth using hashtags on Facebook.

Sendible on Instagram

Similar to Asana, Sendible uses Instagram to promote its company culture and celebrate the successes of the team.

Final thoughts

Running and growing a SaaS company is not all about converting leads into sales, although ultimately that's what keeps your business going. Each of these featured software companies uses social media to entertain and educate prospects and customers, and in some cases direct traffic to their websites to capture leads.

People want to buy from people, not companies. So it's no surprise they show you what's happening behind the scenes at their company. And asking questions to start a conversation or injecting emotions like humor all help to build engagement with their audience.

Successful Saas companies emphasize the social side of their business on social media.

Over to you: How are you going to use social media for your SaaS business?

David Hartshorne is a freelance writer working with business owners and marketing teams to create detailed, actionable content that resonates with their audience. When he’s not writing about digital marketing and technology, you’ll find him chilling with a thriller in Spain.